Transactions. 47 



Of late years the necessity of assuming the action of ice 

 to explain the anomalous characters exhibited by many 

 strata in more than one geological system has become more 

 and more apparent, until it is now held by most of our most 

 eminent men of science that there have been various ice 

 ages at different periods of the world's history. Among 

 these ice ages there is one to which facts point very strongly 

 as existing at the commencement of the Permian Era, the 

 very time when this lake basin must have been formed. 



On this question let us quote from two of our modern 

 leaders in geology — Professors Geikie and Ramsay. 



The former describes a singularly detached area of 

 Permian breccia, between the villages of Leadhills and Craw- 

 fordjohn, in the following terms : — "This breccia," he says, 

 " has been entirely derived from the waste of Lower Silurian 

 rocks. The stones are angular and subangular, often of a 

 somewhat flat form, and vary in size up to a foot or more in 

 length. They strongly resemble the form of stones in 

 boulder-clay or morraine rubbish ; indeed, when the usual 

 stratification fails to appear, and the stones have been thrown 

 together irregularly, the resemblance to a glacial deposit is 

 most striking. A careful search was made among them for 

 striated stones, but without success." 



These facts evidently indicate very conclusively the 

 existence of glacial action on the Lowthers. 



In the Geological Journal Professor Ramsay speaks 

 still more emphatically in favour of an ice age, to account 

 for the origin of similar breccias found in the southern 

 counties of England. 



He founds his belief on the following formitlable array 

 of evidence : — " 1st, The great size of the stones— the largest 

 observed weighing three-fourths of a ton. 2nd, Their forms 

 — rounded pebbles are exceedingly rare. They are angular 

 or subangular, and have those flattened sides so peculiarly 

 characteristic of many glacier fragments in existing morraines, 

 and also of many of the stones of the pleistocene drift, and 

 the morraine matter of the Welsh, Highland, Irish, and 



